On June 23 – 25, Innopolis University will welcome 589 participants of the Russian Robot Olympiad arriving from 50 regions of the Russian Federation. The Olympiad consists of 8 categories, including the recently introduced competition for unmanned aerial vehicles and robotic Tetris game – Tetrastack.
One of the Olympiad challenges is to assemble and program an autonomous robot able to fly in a limited space of a premise. The drone shall detect and deliver loads, observe control points and obstacles during the flight in the unmanned mode. Modern industrial companies are working on an effective solution for this task.
According to Alexander Klimchik, Head of the Intelligent Robotic Systems Lab, “The key challenge is to keep the balance of the aerial vehicle and make it strictly follow the assigned flight path. Some additional challenges may occur when the aerial vehicle has to manoeuvre around obstacles in a non-horizontal position. Participants of the mentioned competitions practice their piloting skills, learn the main physical laws, and find new design and programming solutions for aerial vehicles that can be implemented in major industrial projects in future”.
The testing ground for aerial vehicles is a cube-shaped area with 4-meter sides covered with a safety net. Inside of the cube, there is a special marking, artificial obstacles and coloured cargoes.
“Aerial vehicles can be different: airplanes, helicopters and multicopters, ornithopters and airships. We have no limitations to the used platform, so the participants are free to choose how to design their vehicles. The size is up to 1 meter in each plane, the weight — up 500 grams, the speed — up to 10 m/sec. It is the first competition for drones to be held at the Russian Robot Olympiad”, — told Alexey Khabibullin, the Head of the Office of Project-Oriented Olympiads at Innopolis University.
Sustainable growth is the general theme of the Russian Robot Olympiad this year. Participant will present to the jury the robots that help strayed rare species to find their way back to the habitat, clean the city from greenhouse gases and build turbines of a wind generator.
Participants of the Olympiad will compete for the medals in the following categories: Nature-Oriented Tourism; Carbon Neutrality; Clean and Renewable Energy; Tetrastack; Robot Football; Robots for Sustainable Growth; Personal Intelligent Robotic Systems for Comfortable Life; Manipulators: Sorting; Localization: Map; SLAM (simultaneous localization and mapping); Automotive, Water-Based and Aerial Intelligent Robotic Systems.
The category of the Automotive Intelligent Robotic Systems is designed for robots using a computer vision technology. Their task is to analyse the road situation at the testing ground in real-time mode in terms of current urban conditions: road marking, signs, traffic lights, and road crossing.
“The key challenge is to respond to the real-time road situation. The algorithm shall accurately identify road signs and read the traffic lights. In fact, these tasks are currently solved by the companies producing modern unmanned vehicles. Besides, robots at Тetrastack use a computer vision technology to define the colour and the shape of the pieces. This information helps the robot to fill the scoring frame. The task of autonomous robots is to assemble several lines using cubes of different forms and colours. Robot-based Tetris game is a new task of the advanced category”, — commented Alexey Khabibullin.
Innopolis University has been organizing the Russian Robot Olympiad since 2014. Last year the platform provided by the IT University gathered 557 children from 51 Russian regions. Winners of the Olympiad took part in the Federal Training Boot Camp based at the University to join the Russian national robotic team. At the World Robot Olympiad held in New Delhi, our team won 4 medals in the WRO Football, Open and Regular categories. In 2017, the World Robot Olympiad will be held in Costa Rica.
